GCMD/IDN Science Keywords Version 8.4 Released

The NASA GCMD staff is pleased to announce the release of version 8.4 of the GCMD keywords. Overall 178 new keywords were added and 20 keywords were modified. The keywords are used to facilitate the classification and discovery of Earth Science data by providing a rich vocabulary for characterizing the data. The GCMD keywords are used by hundreds of data providers worldwide for categorizing the ~32k records stored in the Common Metadata Repository.

Additions and updates to the keywords are based on recommendations from the Earth Science community, requests from data providers and GCMD science coordinators. These changes are grouped into releases (generally by keyword type and by science discipline). The releases are then reviewed by subject matter experts and approved by the ESDIS Standards Office according to the Keyword Governance Document. A link to the governance document can be found on the Keyword Forum.

Version 8.4 (which includes the previously unreleased keyword versions 8.2 and 8.3) consists of changes to the Science and Location keywords. The keyword changes are summarized in the keyword summary table.

Contact Us

Questions and comments about keywords can be posted on the new Keyword Community Forum. Please see the Keywords Forum page for general keyword information including instructions for how to access the keywords. Questions and comments about keywords can also be posted on the Forum. The GCMD User Support staff can be reached at gsfc-gcmduso@mail.nasa.gov . Questions can also be directed to Stephen.Wharton@nasa.gov.